The boundary of SEO cover is much larger than just keyword optimization, link building, and content. One of the factors that are largely responsible for the SEO of any website is its hosting.
It is not enough to get your website designed by the best SEO agency in the market until you are not choosing the right website hosting for the same.
It is crucial to pay attention to the requirements of your online business and match the same with the features of website hosting available to you.
Hosting Parameters That Affect Website SEO
Catch a glance at the below-given stats related to website hosting affecting SEO that will shock you!
The time taken for website loading in shared hosting is much greater than that in VPS hosting. It will first affect the customer experience and then the bounce rate, ranking, and other factors.
This is just one factor that impacts the search engine optimization of your website based on the page load time taken by any website to load. Several other factors need to be acknowledged when you plan to choose website hosting.
So, to throw light on the major factors related to website hosting that can affect the SEO of your website, we have curated a list for you to understand in detail. Do check out the solution offered for each problem that you may face to quickly resolve these gaps.
Website Speed
A lightning website speed is highly valued by visitors. They hold more chances of ranking on the search engines as compared to slow-loading websites. It is the first thing that makes up the user experience on your online platform.
In 2010, Google explicitly stated that website loading speed is one of over 200 factors that affect the ranking on a search engine. Although the number is just 0.5%, this factor is linked to many other factors that can take this small number high to affect the search engine optimization of your website.
How are website hosting and website speed related?
The resources are shared by tons of websites when your website is live on a shared host. The consumption of resources also increases as the number of sites sharing the resources increase. It results in the slower loading of your website.
How does it affect SEO?
One would be shocked to know that if a website loading time exceeds 3 seconds to load, users abandon it.
Even a 1-second delay is so significant that it can harm the ranking, bounce rate, customer experience, and much more.
Solution
You can either move your website to a server that has a limited number of websites, or you can choose a private/dedicated server for your website. It will instantly improve the website loading speed of your website.
Thus, in the long run, SEO services efforts will be affected as poor hosting worsens website loading speed, which in turn affects the ranking.
Website Security
In 2014, Google recognized SSL certificates as a point in the ranking factors list included in their algorithm. Thus, it stands as an important factor that comes along with many website hosting and is a part to look into precisely if you are establishing your business online.
So, whenever you pick a website hosting package, make sure that an SSL certificate is a part of it.
How is website hosting and website security related?
Customers trust the business that offers security to their data. So, to establish the foundation of trust with your customers, you need to make sure that you are offering them a safe online platform to browse on.
For this, you need SSL certificate installation on your website.
How does it affect SEO?
Without any security or SSL certification installed on your website, there lays a high probability that your data can get leaked. Thus, it signals a red flag to the user subconsciously, after which they either abandon or don’t visit your website at all.
Another drawback of using a shared website hosting is that Google crawlers may take up a lot of time as there are tons of sites. So, the indexing of your website may take longer than usual and show any update in the SERPs.
In many cases, it is also noticed that the search visibility drops off while using a shared server. It can make all your SEO services efforts go to waste with just one wrong step.
Solution
Get SSL certificates installed on your website that helps in encrypting the transfer of data taking place between your server and the user’s web browser. This way, you make that bridge safe and robust on which the user can feel secure for sharing their data.
So, it’s high time that you switch from http:// to https:// with SSL certification on your website.
Uptime/Downtime
When a user or Google is requesting your website and the time it takes to show the results, it is referred to as uptime of any website. It should be almost close to 100% to provide an exceptional user experience on your website.
It is a factor that has no scope of the compromise, and not even 1 % is negotiable.
Although, it can’t be fully rectified, and there will be times when your website will go down, for say, 5 minutes, 15 seconds, or less throughout the year. In such a case, one can only expect that even if it occurs, the time is as short as possible.
A study by CloudEndure stated that out of 100,000 websites, 52% had 99.9% uptime that means 8 hours 45m 57.0s downtimes in a year.
How is website hosting and uptime/downtime related?
While using shared hosting from a website hosting provider, your website may face huge downtimes given to not enough resources. This makes the data unavailable to the customers when they are in need. In such scenarios, you have high chance of losing potential traffic to your competitors.
How does it affect SEO?
The resources used for its servers affect the downtime/uptime of any website hosting. If you have more space on your website, the subscription cost will also shoot high. If your website hosting server has limited resources and too many websites utilizing it, downtime can surge. It further makes the user frustrated as the request takes so much time to get the results.
Solution
If your website is experiencing continuous downtime issues, upgrade to better hosting packages like a VPN, Private or dedicated server. You can also use a monitoring system like Uptime Robot or others for the same so that whenever your website faces such an issue, you get notified about the same.
Rest assured of short downtimes harming your website as they do not affect the ranking of your website.
Backup
The biggest nightmare for a website owner is losing all their website data.
For a better decision, stick to precautions instead of looking out for solutions after the disaster!
It could be a malicious activity or a mistake that can prove a catastrophe to the site owners.
How are website hosting and backup related?
With secured and good website hosting, your website won’t be at risk of collapsing as the backup services will be included in it. It will be managed by the website hosting provider for updates and any redundancies if occur.
How would it affect SEO?
With all your data lost, your website will lose all the ranking, or in the worst-case, even kill a business instantly.
Solution
To save yourself from starting from scratch, take a backup of all the data of your website. Avail website hosting from providers that offer backup services in their package. You don’t need to update, as they will do the same for you. Just choose an ideal hoist for your website instead of a third-party subscription.
Another viable option available is that many hosting providers who don’t offer backup services often provide third-party backup services at discounted rates. So, you can try that too if you go for a website without any backup service.
Location
Apart from accessing the content, backlinks, and other factors on your website, search engines also access the location of your website. It is also a factor that Google considers while deciding the ranking of any website.
How are website hosting and location-related?
It is accessed by Google depending upon the location of your website host. The IP address of your website, depending on the server location, will be used while considering the rank of the same.
How would it affect SEO?
The vicinity of the server from the searchers can reduce the waiting time and will excel the speed of your website. If your location is listed away from the searcher's location, priority will be given to the businesses of that location.
Solution
Host your website on the server at the location where your target audience lies. It will also save you from the suspicion from the Google algorithm that your server and business are located at different locations.
Thus, before you head on to get website hosting from any SEO agency or other hosting provider, make sure that you check all the above points. It is crucial to choose the right website hosting for your website to avoid getting your SEO efforts to-go waste.
